Mystery revealed: Little Corn Island, NICARAGUA!

I am finally publishing my mystery vacation post. Nicaragua?! Who would have thought Nicaragau? I always thought there was some embargo on that country, like Cuba. Or that I would get captured and tortured for being American or something. :) But, no. No drugs, no illegal weapons, and no tyrant dictator kidnapping me through terrorists in order to make demands on my country---maybe next time. :)

We actually went to a little island off the coast of a bigger island, off the coast of Nicaragua. It is called Little Corn Island. (The bigger island is called, Big Corn Island--interestingly enough.) It has no roads, and no motor vehicles on the island. It's a lot like what the Carribean was 100 years ago. The villagers mainly live off of lobster catching. No resorts (or even two story buildings). Just cabins on the beach. Electricity is all solar or wind. Because it's still untouched, the water is clean and blue.

To get there, we flew into Managua, then caught a little jumper airplane and flew across the country to Big Corn Island. From there we got on a little boat, called the Panga, and rode out to sea to Little Corn Island.

All along I was expecting to know the location once we arrived at the airport and I saw the destination. Well, the flight only listed the city, not the country. I have never heard of Managua so all I knew is that it was somewhere Spanish speaking. It was never said on the plane, no one wore a shirt with the country name--nothing until we landed and the pilot mentioned "Nicaragua" as he directed us to customs. My jaw dropped! (See 1st paragraph). I started laughing and kept saying, "I am in Nicaragua?!" It was a lot of fun to not have any idea where you are in the world.

The little jumper plane was like the plane on fantasy island. The terminal was a kool-aid stand terminal. You had to stand on a scale with all your luggage (we only took a back pack) in order to determine the total weight on the plane. There is nothing like getting weighed in front of a long line of people! I wanted to yell out, "my scriptures are REALLY HEAVY!"

Once we got on the plane I felt like Fred Flintstone. My first reaction was to put my feet down and start running to help the plane get enough momentum for liftoff. Then once in the air, the plane would shimmy from side to side depending on the gusts of wind. It was a great adventure.
The jumper plane was fun, but nowhere near as adventurous as the Panga!!!! This was one of the highlights of the trip. To travel to the small island one has to get into a small boat that fits 40 people, jammed in like sardines. The boat sits so low to the water that your arm is only inches away from the ocean. Together with all the people, there are supplies stored all around you. Jared had a big bag of melons at his feet. Surprisingly, no chickens--at least not alive, plenty of bags of meat dripping with blood.

As the boat leaves the harbor, you begin immediately to pray for your life! The waves are huge and the driver goes at lightning speed. Every wave brings you out of your seat, only to fall back hard. This together with melons rolling around, waves crashing in, and the lady next to me with a throw up bad at her mouth made for a lot of laughing! To make it better, it started to rain. Shelter was provided in the form of a big black plastic tarp that we all crouched down and held over our heads. I felt like a sardine! A can of sardines that was tossed into an agitator. Earlier, Jared had thanked me for not needing a vacation with a swanky hotel. I looked over at him, and yelled, "what did you say about the swanky hotel?!" It was so fun. The vacation could have ended there and it would have all been worth it.

But there were more good times to be had. Our cabin was right on a cliff overlooking the bluest ocean I have ever seen. The weather was perfect, and there was this strong breeze that blue all day and all night. It was the most relaxing thing to sit in a hammock or sleep to the sound of the waves below, and the to have the cool breeze blowing over us at night. I loved waking up to the ocean right outside our cabin, and taking an outdoor shower as everybody walked by and said hello--weird. It was refreshing though to shower with cool water while looking at the Caribbean and palm trees swaying around you. The food was incredible and really cheap. Every day was an adventure in eating amazing food. I never understood the love affair with lobster until now---it is all about getting it fresh (probably caught that day)! There's nothing better than sitting on a cliff overlooking the bluest water you've ever seen, while eating coconut bread french toast. Wow! And Fresca---Soda outside of the US is made with cane sugar. We make ours with corn syrup---huge difference in taste. Ours is far inferior.

The island is only a couple of miles in circumference. We stayed in a cabin on one end, away from the village. Each day we made the 40 minute trek each way through the jungle. It was so green and beautiful. It was especially exciting at night since there is not electricity on the island except for a few places which use wind energy from their own windmills or solar energy. We got lost in the jungle a couple of times, but it was great fun. As we walked the small, unlit path with our flashlights we would come across HUGE crabs of all sorts. Jared was perplexed as to why they frightened me so much. I just kept imagining them jumping out of the coconut shells and latching on to the back of my heel as I walked.---Don't ask. The second half of the week we stayed in a place called "Farm Peace and Love." It sounds like a hippy commune, but it was actually owned by Paula, an Italian lady who used to be a journalist but fell in love with the island and settled down. She married a local islander named "Bing Crosby" (no joke). We called him Brother Bing. Brother Bing has a brother name "Elvis Presley." His dad really liked music. At night Paula would cook authentic Italian food. Really good. We met lots of other really great people, usually from Europe. Not a lot of Americans, but we made some great friends from England, Sweeden, and Germany.

The greatest highlight of the trip was the DOLPHINS!!! Before leaving, I knew that we would take a scuba diving course on the vacation (we passed our tests and are now open water certified!!!) We really thought that it would be cool if we got to see dolphins while on a dive. We prayed with the kids before we left that if it were possible, the dolphins could be sent our way. When we arrived at the dive shop (called Dolphin Dive) I asked the instructor if he could take us to a spot that was known for dolphins. He said that dolphins don't normally live in that part of the carribean. The are usually more north. He said that he had only seen them one time on the surface from a distance. I told him that I wanted to see that and that I believe in miracles! He thought I was crazy, I am sure.

We made a total of 6 dives in three days, plus all our shallow water dives. Each dive I would pray the whole time to see the dolphins. Our last training dive was Friday morning. It was a great dive and we saw great fish every time, star fish, sting rays, drum fish, giant lobsters, baracuda, angel fish, puffer fish, all sorts of groupers, and more (lots of great pics below). We finished the dive and got back into the boat, happy to have passed all our skill training, but let down for not seeing dolphins. I thought, well, maybe the Lord needed the dolphins in another part of the carribean today. :)

As we were sitting on the boat, getting ready to leave, lo and behold, Jared looked out and saw DOLPHINS! No one believed it at first, because they had gone back down, but then they jumped back up! They were coming STRAIGHT at our boat! (I like to think that they had been directed there a couple days before and they were thinking to themselves, "wait, wait, don't leave yet, we're coming!")

It became a frenzy on the boat, and all safety training went out the window. I did hear my instructor say, "stay close to the boat"--but even he didn't follow that! We all jumped in. I thought to put on a mask, but no fins. Another girl didn't put anything on, she just jumped. We laughed about that afterward when she said that before she got her mask from someone on the boat all she could see was a blur. But she wanted to say that she swam with the dolphins before they swam away.

There were 16 of them. They just swam around the boat for awhile playing around. We could hear them make their chirping sound. My favorite was watching a baby calf swim around and spin around its mother. So adorable!! Half of our group was coming up from their dive and were still under water when the dolphins swam past them. It was a great sight to see all of us in the water yelling and cheering! I just kept thanking Heavenly Father over and over and over!
When we popped back up and were getting on the boat, I yelled to my instructor, "See Adam, I told you that I believe in miracles!" He laughed this time.

Word spread fast on the island. All during the day people would ask, "were you on that boat this morning with the dolphins?" Unfortunately there are no pictures to prove our miracle! We didn't have a camera because we were still in training, and the girl who did bring a camera--it broke while she was on the dive. Bummer, but I will always remember that experience!

We needed one last experience to make the trip perfect. Jared still wanted to see a turtle and the boys wanted us to see sharks. We decided to go on another dive Friday afternoon. This was our first dive as "graduates". It was a lot of fun and we were able to take pictures. Again, we needed an answer to a prayer to see the turtle. The spot where we were going had sharks there quite a bit lately so we were expecting them, but turtles are harder to find--especially in the afternoon, they are more active at night.

Prayer 2 answered! We saw a turtle and a couple of nurse sharks! Also a giant spotted eagle ray. It made the trip complete and perfect! There was another boat that was diving next to ours and they couldn't believe we saw the turtle. I kept thinking to myself, man I hope everyone here is happy for this miracle since my kids were praying for these things!

The trip home was exhausting! We almost didn't get on the jumper plane back to Managua. The kool-aid stand airline messed up our reservations. Thankfully we got on, otherwise we would have been stranded on the island for three more days when there was an open seat.
Mine and Jared's ears were hurting so bad from all the dives, then a flight on that little kool-aid stand airplane that does not have good pressurization. It was a bit alarming when Jared's nose would keep bleeding. He had been diving with a cold (not supposed to do that, but whadda ya do) he probably blew some blood vessels as he equalized so hard under water. Then the plane just messed us all up. I have been deaf for a week now! So worth it! So worth it!

Little Corn Island is beautiful, comparatively untouched, safe, and really cheap. I would recommend it to anyone for a vacation. If you go, I recommend staying at Casa Iguana. Great view, cabins, and amazing food.

Diving On Little Corn Island, Nicaragua

(click on the pictures to see them bigger)

Sting Ray

Tamany chillin with the nurse sharks

Nurse shark

Spotted Eagle Ray (click to see spots)

Loggerhead Sea-Turtle (click on this one; very cool)

Hiking through the island jungle

Home-made wind mill powered out cabin.

Tamany saying "good morning" to the other guests.

View from our breakfast table.

Enjoying the wind and a good book.

Tamany relaxing on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

View from our bed. Good way to wake up in the morning.

Crazy panga boat that took us to the island.

Ticket for our puddle-jumper airplane looked like
a licence plate.